My Heart Will Most Certainly Not Go On
by Flame Tigress
Summary: After the fatal events of the Triwizard Tournament, Cho Chang hears the Titanic song (*gag*) on the radio...and beneath her mocking thoughts, grief for Cedric still lurks.


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Author's Note: I had a bit of fun with this. It's an emotional piece about Cho, a songfic with the setup that the character is actually listening to the song, and an excuse to diss on "My Heart Will Go On," ranting about all the things I've wanted to rant about for a really long time. For this story, it is necessary to establish that Cho is Muggle-born. I don't know if she actually is. And yes, there is a minor anachronism – "Titanic" came out in 1997 and the Harry Potter part technically should be set in 1995. But anything for the sake of fanfiction ideas, right?

Cho Chang and other Harry Potter characters _certainly_ do not belong to me; they are the brainchildren and creative property of J.K. Rowling the great and powerful. The song "My Heart Will Go On" was written by James Horner (music) and Will Jennings (lyrics); it is not mine either. I am not making any money from this, as you all know.

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My Heart Will Most Certainly _Not _Go On

And the last strains of Savage Garden's "Truly, Madly, Deeply" faded into some pretty flute music that Cho couldn't immediately identify, but which, she mused as she worked on her History of Magic essay, was rather pleasant to listen to. But then her homework-doing trance of concentration was broken by all-too-familiar words:

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Every night in my dreams, I see you, I feel you.

Of all the idiotic Muggle radio songs, this had to be the worst. The movie was even less intelligent. Cho rolled her eyes as Celine Dion's breathy, emotional, Canadian voice continued:

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That is how I know you go on.

The radio was all the way in the kitchen. Cho would have to get up and interrupt her train of thought in the essay to either change the station or turn the damn thing off. She continued writing about the influence of dark wizardry on the Muggles' World War II, moderately annoyed by the radio's fuzzy

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Far across the distance and spaces between us…

Finishing a sentence about Grindelwald's Imperius Curse on the Japanese wizards, Cho's mind did the obvious when confronted with a mediocre song about a dead lover: jump to thinking about Cedric. She tried to shake herself out of it – a dumb song about a stupid dead man who never existed in the first place should _not_ remind her of a kind, noble person who really died tragically and whom she really loved…well, maybe 'love' was too strong a word. Love or no, she knew it was an insult to Cedric's memory to think of him in relation to _this _song.

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You have come to show you go on.

Hah. Go on? Where did Cedric go on? When did he come to show her he did? Real dead people don't show up in dreams and make you feel all better again just like that. Cedric was _dead._ And unless he started partying with Moaning Myrtle in the water closet, she wasn't going to see him again any time soon.

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Near, far, wherever you are,

I believe that the heart does go on.

More fool Celine Dion. 'Oh well, he's dead, let's just pick up and move on.' Works with Leonardo diCaprio, but not with most other people. Near, far, or wherever the hell Cedric was – most likely nowhere at all – he wasn't with Cho, and her heart was going to take a little while longer than the length of the song to go on.

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Once more, you open the door…

Door? Cho mentally scoffed. Does the heart have a door that one can pop in and out of? Does someone ever take a little outing out of the heart and then come back in through the door? Her derision at the words covered a lurking sorrow that was ready to resurface in her thoughts. Does anyone who has entered the 'door' ever come out?

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And you're here in my heart and my heart will go on and on.

Uh-huh. How touching. What was it about this song that made people cry and say, 'Oh, I feel just this way about my loved ones'? Is it that easy for most people to live on with the dead just in their hearts? What was wrong with Cho? Maybe it was just more disturbing if the one you love was murdered by an evil dark lord than if he died in a shipwreck. It just wasn't _fair _that Cedric should die because of a random act of malice, that Cho wasn't there to see his face or kiss him one last time before he was dead, and that was all. It wasn't fair that she shouldn't be allowed to hear his last words or know that he was at peace before he was gone.

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Love can touch us one time and last for a lifetime,

And never let go 'til we're gone.

Wait, first her heart will go on, and then her love is lasting until she dies? Won't the pain last as long as the love does? Whenever she thinks of her love, won't she feel more acutely than the joy of her long-ago passion the absence of this person in her life? Obviously, whoever wrote the dumb song never lost a love, or at least not one as sweet and interesting as Cedric.

But one thing the song got right was that love will never let go. It's like alcohol – the intoxication is pleasant, but the damn hangovers never go away.

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Love was when I loved you, one true time I hold to.

In my life, we'll always go on.

Will I find love again? Cho wondered. Will this be the truest love I ever know? Or is the song being stupid on this account, too? It's definitely the most tragic…but the first love can't be the only true love. 'In my life, we'll always go on.' What a life – dwelling on a dead lover while the 'heart will go on and on,' and there will be other loves. Her heart goes on with the dead guy tagging along behind, going on right with it. Will I be making out with other lovers and still thinking about Cedric? Cho wondered. The voice of her thoughts was sarcastic and bitter, but still…she wondered how long this would haunt her. How long she would have nightmares about the cold, cruel voice Harry had told of, saying "Kill the spare," and then Cedric lying dead on the ground; about the sight of Cedric's lifeless body emerging from the maze that he had entered so vital and eager.

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Near, far, wherever you are,

I believe that the heart does go on.

I wish I could, thought Cho, anger and grief a suppressed burning inside her chest like the beginnings of a fire under wet earth. I wish I could believe that the heart does go on. If I were just another ordinary teenage girl who swoons over Leonardo diCaprio and thinks this movie and this song are so sweet and sad, maybe I would. But I'm not. It happened to me – my boyfriend is dead – and I'm waiting for my heart to go on.

But it hasn't.

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Once more, you open the door,

And you're here in my heart and my heart will go on and on.

Cho banged her fist against the table as the music reached a dramatic crescendo. She wasn't going to endure the torture of memories that this trivial, idiotic song put her through. It shouldn't affect her so. She stood up and walked over to the radio in the kitchen…but the song pulled her in, and she walked slowly, something in her not wanting to stop the beautiful melody, the powerful voice, the emotion-filled lyrics.

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You're here, there's nothing I fear,

And I know that my heart will go on.

Cho's finger was poised over the 'off' switch, her hand reluctant to do what her cynical, critical mind told it. 'There's nothing I fear,' her mind scoffed. There's plenty I fear – the Dark Lord's return, further death and injury, the reduction of the world to the state of dominated fear it had cowered in under the tyranny of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Cedric being in my memories doesn't cancel all that out.

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We'll stay forever this way…

Why did it have to be _this _way that lasts forever? Why couldn't peace free of fear and death last forever? Why must all good things come to an end, and why the _hell _was Celine Dion happy about it?

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You are safe in my heart and…

*Click.* Cho's finger flicked to one side, and the music and the Canadian voice stopped abruptly. Cho couldn't stand to hear those words one more time, not when she had experienced a death in the same way as the singer, but the emotions in the song were all wrong.

'My heart will go on and on.'

Like hell it will.


End file.
